Police hope to reunite trades people with their tools

Following a large recovery of stolen power tools in February, Thames Valley Police is appealing for victims to get in touch in the hope of reuniting them with their stolen tools.

More than 2,000 power tools were recovered near Aylesbury in early February. These included power drills, routers and impact drivers.

Victims that they have been able to locate have come from within the Thames Valley as well as from 16 other police force areas including Kent, Avon and Somerset and Norfolk.

The tools were recovered on February 2 so if your tools were stolen after this date, they will not be part of this operation.

Detectives working on the investigation into the theft now have a complete list of the tools and serial numbers from those recovered.

To be able to reunite you with your tools, you will need to provide a crime reference number for the theft and proof of ownership. This could be the serial numbers, identifying marks or distinguishing features of your tools.

Many of the tools that have been recovered have identifying marks on them such as people’s names or nicknames.

If you believe that your tools may be part of this operation, please contact operation.appleton@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk with your crime reference number, the date your tools were stolen and details of your tools, including serial numbers, identifying marks or distinguishing features.

Thames Valley Police is expecting a large number of enquiries but anyone making contact will receive a response.

Alternatively you can call 101 and quote reference number 43180036034.

Operation Appleton lead, Detective Sergeant Shay Harper, said: “I am pleased to be in a position to reunite these tools with their rightful owners.

“My team and I have worked hard over the past few months to identify owners of these tools in a number of ways including checks of national databases and crime reports from across the country.

“However, with a number of tools carrying unique but unregistered marks on them, I believe there are a number of people out there who would recall these marks, enabling us to reunite them.